TORONTO — Doug Ford's Progressive Conservatives won't have long to sit back and bask in the glow of winning a third majority government with an imminent tariff threat around the corner.
The Tories won Ontario's snap provincial election Thursday with Ford speaking about the need to fight U.S. President Donald Trump's proposed tariffs at nearly every turn on the campaign trail.
Just days later those threats may become reality, as Trump has said 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods will be imposed starting Tuesday.
The Progressive Conservative seat count is largely unchanged, with 80, while the NDP will again form the official Opposition with a somewhat smaller caucus than before the election, at 27 seats. In 2022, the Tories won 83 seats while the NDP took 31.
Those results are still unofficial, as Elections Ontario said official tabulation will take place from Saturday to Monday. The unofficial results show two ridings with margins under 25 — the Progressive Conservatives won Mississauga-Lakeshore with 20 votes more than the Liberals and the NDP won Mushkegowuk-James Bay with just four votes more than the Tories — and if those margins hold, they will trigger recounts.
The Tories are ready to work with the federal government should Trump impose tariffs next week, said Ford's spokeswoman Grace Lee.
"We're ready to pull American alcohol from the shelves," Lee said Friday. "We're ready to tear up Ontario's contract with Starlink and ban American companies from billions of dollars' worth of procurement. We won’t start a fight with the U.S., but we’re ready to win one."
The LCBO began pulling U.S. alcohol from shelves in the hours leading up to Trump's previous deadline to impose tariffs on Canadian goods on Feb. 4. But Ontario's main liquor seller and distributor paused that when Trump delayed the tariffs.
Ford also previously said he would rip up the $100-million deal his government signed with Elon Musk's SpaceX last year to bring high-speed internet to northern and rural communities.
The legislature cannot be recalled before March 15 because newly minted members of provincial parliament will not be certified until then, Lee said.
Despite winning fewer seats compared to 2022, the conservatives are jubilant with a third straight majority, said Michael Diamond, president of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.
"I've always believed the more voters see and understand of Doug Ford, the more positively they respond, and we've seen that with increased vote share throughout his time as leader in these three elections," Diamond said.
Ford's PCs won 42.97 per cent of the vote with more than 2.1 million votes, up from a 40.8 per cent share in 2022 and a 40.5 per cent share in 2018.
The biggest change of the night was for the Liberals, who won 14 seats, enough to regain official party status for the first time since 2018 — but leader Bonnie Crombie did not win a seat.
She said in her election night speech that she is staying on, but whether party members are content to have her lead from outside the legislature remains to be seen.
"Rebuilding takes time," Crombie said on social media Friday.
"Ontario's Liberals fought hard in this tough snap election to win official party status for the first time in seven years. And we aren't going anywhere. Last night, we earned 30 per cent of the vote and we will continue building."
Despite garnering the third most seats, the Liberals brought in significantly more voters. More than 1.5 million Ontarians voted for the Liberals Thursday, nearly 30 per cent of the vote share, while the NDP brought in 930,000 votes, or an 18.5 per cent share.
The Liberals are set to debrief this weekend with a series of meetings.
"There are always dissenters, but we are confident the majority of Ontario Liberals are behind Bonnie and want to keep building on the growth we achieved last night," said Liberal campaign spokeswoman Taylor Deasley in a statement.
"The deck was stacked against us in this campaign, but we brought the OLP back to party status, and we must keep moving in the right direction, together."
Andrea Lawlor, an associate political science professor at McMaster University, said the election can definitely be seen as a success for the Liberals, but there are always different factions in a broad tent party.
"I’m sure there will be some very frank conversations happening in the party headquarters over the next couple of days about what went well, what went wrong and what portion of that could be assigned to Bonnie Crombie," she said.
Meanwhile, Ford will need to get to the business of governing, something he and his team are well-prepared to do, having already been in government for the past seven years.
Karim Bardeesy, executive director at The Dais, a public policy think tank at Toronto Metropolitan University, said Ford will have to decide what he wants his next government to look like.
"The main decisions that are being made at this point are who's in the cabinet ... (and) what are the ministries?" said Bardeesy, who was also a top staffer in the former Ontario Liberal government.
Governments often change the scope and names of ministries in order to signal different priorities, balance different regional considerations and eye the size of cabinet.
In his last government, Ford split up several ministries, creating a large cabinet of 37 people.
"I don't know if it's possible to make this one any larger," Bardeesy said.
The new government will also start preparing a throne speech, which opens a new session of parliament and sets out a government's agenda, and working on bringing back legislation that died when the election was called, such as a bill intended to help municipalities clear homeless encampments out of public parks.
The next provincial budget will also have to be tabled soon.
"As it turns out, just because of where we are in the cycle, you'd go immediately into budget preparation, or picking up where the budget preparation left off," Bardeesy said.
The budget is typically tabled before the end of March.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 28, 2025.
Allison Jones and Liam Casey, The Canadian Press
